


Being Fourteen

by laureltreedaphne



Category: The OC
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 06:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2571824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laureltreedaphne/pseuds/laureltreedaphne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the OC Flashficathon for imsteenie. She asked for dark Seth/Summer with a mention of Seth's childhood. Hope this fits the bill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Fourteen

**Author's Note:**

> Migrating fic over from LiveJournal - this is from 2004.

Being fourteen fucking sucks. Especially when you're sitting on the floor of the boys locker room, back against the lockers, with about half of the water polo team looming over you. God only knows where the other half of the water polo team is. Waxing their chests, or getting advice on how to be assholes from their high school counterparts, or hanging out with girls like Summer Roberts, maybe. 

There's noise coming from behind the other side of the lockers, and Seth hears someone say, "Yeah, do it man! Pee in his shoes! Fucking awesome!"

Ah. There's the other half of the team. 

Luke sneers at him from above, chest and hair still dripping from the showers they all took after PE. "New year, Cohen. And you're already starting it off the wrong way." A couple of the other guys snicker to each other, one flashes him a fairly explicit hand gesture. 

"We saw what you were doing in the showers, Cohen. Checking us out. Fucking fag," says some guy wearing a Rolex, and Seth wants to defend himself, wants to make some sort of comment about fourteen year olds who wear thousand dollar gold watches, but his mouth is too dry to force any words out. 

Luke high-fives the guy. "Listen, Cohen," he says. "I don't want to have to do this. But it's for your own good. You need to learn how things work around here."

Being fourteen fucking sucks. Especially when there's piss in the brand new shoes your mom just bought you two days ago, smiling and laughing about how you were growing up so fast. Especially when in a couple of minutes half the water polo team will see that you're wearing your lucky Wonder Woman boxers, since it was the first day of school and all, and you wanted to start it off right. Especially when you'll have to go home to your parents, who are friends with everybody, and explain why you are friends with nobody. Especially when you'll have to walk into Algebra late, with torn clothes and a bruised face, and let everybody, including Summer Roberts, see what happened. 

* 

There's a difference between what Seth thinks he wants and what Seth actually wants, but at least he's smart enough to know it. He's also smart enough to know that this new life that he has isn't really his. If it wasn't for Ryan, he'd still be icing down his bruises every night when he got home, instead of sitting around playing video games with Marissa Cooper, of all people. If it wasn't for Ryan, he definitely wouldn't be friends with Luke, gay dad or not. And if it wasn't for Ryan, the Summer-Anna issue wouldn't even exist. 

Seth's a big believer in not upsetting the natural balance of things, and the idea of him with Summer definitely upsets the natural balance. Who knows what could happen if they got together. Maybe it's a sign of the coming apocalypse, and Seth just doesn't know it yet - fire raining down from the sky, oceans turning to blood, and Summer Roberts kissing Seth Cohen in his pool house. 

Anna is what every geek boy dreams of. A girl who loves comic books, video games, all the same music that he listens to, and is absolutely gorgeous in her own quirky way. Plus, she loves sex (well, making out, at least), and she knows that Deathcab for Cutie is far superior to Dashboard Confessional, and that anyone who compares the two has no idea what they're talking about. Anna is perfect.

But Summer is his dream, his personal dream, and he can't let go of her. He's still Farmer Ted pining for Samantha Baker in Sixteen Candles, and no matter how many times Ryan tells him that's not true, that he's at least graduated to Duckie level by now, he can't let go of it. 

He can't let go of Summer's hands shaking while she reads her mermaid poem, can't let go of the time Summer leaned over during AP Modern Western History when she was sure no one could see her and said, "Leave through the back door today, the varsity soccer team is out front,", can't let go of the fact that Summer never laughed at him (well, at least not very much, anyway) when he had to walk through the hallways smelling like urine. 

It's unfair to Anna, he knows, but she'll understand. After all, she's perfect.

*

Summer renames his iPod "Seth Cohen's Depressing Emo Bullshit Music", and then deletes all the songs that she doesn't like. She tells him not to skateboard anymore _(Skateboarding is like, so early 90's, Cohen)_ , and to stop wearing t-shirts with funny logos or phrases on them _(Urban Outfitters is for rebellious thirteen year olds. Haven't you ever heard of Neiman's? Or at least Abercrombie?)_. She gets this pissed off look on her face when he has his hour long marathon phone conversations with Anna, but doesn't say anything about them. He thinks it's because she doesn't want to turn into her stepmother (a sniping, overbearing bitch), but also probably because Anna is gone now, and not any sort of threat. Sometimes she'll get on the phone too and make some sort of obscure Golden Girls reference that he doesn't understand and ask how Anna's doing before handing the phone back to him with a smile. Sometimes she'll even leave the room and Seth'll only be able to hear murmuring for a couple of minutes before she returns, hanging up the phone and cheerfully commenting on how she never realized she'd miss Anna so much. 

Sometimes, when they're alone (which Seth tries to make happen as little as possible), Luke will desperately try to make up for their past. He's insecure, Seth can see it, and he's not the type to milk it for all it's worth, make Luke pay for his former sins. "Who'd have ever thought you'd end up with someone as hot as Summer, huh?" Luke'll say, clapping him on the back and making him mess up on Grand Theft Auto. "No one can believe it's true."

"Yeah, who'd have thought," he'll answer, smirking.

Being sixteen sucks slightly less than being fourteen did, but Seth sometimes wonders if it's really better, this borrowed life that he has. At night he dreams of life without Ryan, a life where he'd still be pining for Summer from across the quad, making up a new life that included her. Seth's always lived his life in fantasy, it's why he retreats so often into comic books and games. But that's the problem with fantasies: no matter how much you love them, you wouldn't actually want to live in a world where Superman was constantly having to save you from super-villains. 

Seth wonders, sometimes, if he'd rather still have his fantasy.


End file.
